


What Remains

by LydiaStJames



Series: Timelines [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, M/M, companion fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 15:46:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19748836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LydiaStJames/pseuds/LydiaStJames
Summary: The story went a little like this: There was a man who couldn’t grow old. Eventually he had a son, who also couldn’t grow old, who had another son, and another.(AKA, the Ronan POV for "The Time It Takes (To Believe in Fate)".)





	What Remains

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! If you haven't read my other fic - "The Time it Takes (To Believe in Fate)" - I would highly recommend not reading this one and giving the other a try first. This story is a companion piece to it and will likely be very confusing if you don't read the other first. 
> 
> As for everyone else, hey! Long time no see. This is the Ronan POV I promised, uh, ages ago.

The story went a little like this: 

There was a man who couldn’t grow old. Eventually he had a son, who also couldn’t grow old, who had another son, and another. 

One of those boys was Niall Lynch. 

The day of his birth a baby girl appeared along with him. This was peculiar for many reasons. First, and most peculiar, being that Niall’s mother most certainly did not give birth to more than one child. Second, baby girls did not happen in this family line. Niall’s father and his grandfather and his great grandfather all speculated this was on purpose.  _ Women didn’t get the gift, _ they would say.  _ The universe knows having a girl would be a waste. _

(“What a crock of shit,” Ashley said about that, years and years later. It was probably for the best she never got to meet Niall Lynch.)

Needless to say, it was very strange that this baby girl appeared. Niall’s parents named her Aurora and helped raise her. It made things quite awkward when Niall turned thirteen and promptly declared that he was in love with her. 

Niall’s parents were against the union until Niall turned 21, the age which he never grew past, and then finally accepted the relationship. Because, as it turned out, Aurora did not age past 21 either. They both stayed ageless and perfect, forever in their youth, and it was then that Niall’s father realized,  _ Ah, she’s his token. _

Because every ageless man had a token they were born with, something that followed them around. This gift came with no instructions, so no man ever knew what determined their token, though it was speculated that it was meant to complete the man. To be something that satisfied an ache they didn’t realize they had.

For Niall, this meant the love of his life. Someone to stay with him and follow him to every stretch of Ireland. 

Since Niall’s token was a living, breathing, dream-come-true, he was quite confused when his first son was born and his token was a stitched quilt. Ten squares by ten squares. It appeared wrapped around his son when they awoke the next morning.

It was the first of many disappointments that Declan Lynch brought to Niall. 

When his second son was born and a gigantic, thriving forest came with him, Niall thought,  _ Now this is what I expected. _ Ronan Lynch always found it a bit ironic how much pride his father had for him. Niall was lucky enough to die before he realized that Ronan would disappoint him more than Declan ever did. 

By the time Matthew Lynch was born and a small chapel appeared with him, Niall didn’t care much about the tokens anymore. That was often Matthew’s curse: neither a disgrace nor a blessing, his father just didn’t pay him much attention. 

Niall Lynch had a perfect family and a nearly perfect life and didn’t appreciate any of it enough. It took Ronan far too long to realize this about his beloved father. In the end, it was sheer luck that the family had any functional relationship at all, that the brothers had a bond that could survive a father pitting them against one another.

Well, no, that wasn’t quite true.

It wasn’t luck. It was a blanket. 

* * *

In 1949, while Ronan sat with his extremely pregnant sister-in-law, Ashley asked, “Why a blanket? I’ve never understood the blanket.”

Ronan let her clench his hand as she experienced another contraction. He was far too drunk for this, but Ashley went into labor one month earlier than expected and Declan was out on a business trip. She had no one else. 

This contraction seemed worse than the ones before. In an effort to distract her, Ronan admitted more truths than he normally would. “They say the token is supposed to give us what we want. Or maybe what we need. Declan always wanted one thing.”

“And what’s that?” Ashley asked through gritted teeth.

“You’ll see when he’s born,” Ronan said, nodding to her belly. 

Ronan was only half right. 

* * *

When Ronan was about six - still aging, of course, because Ronan aged until he hit 25 - he woke to pounding rain. Matthew was in the next room, curled up next to their mother, which left just him and Declan sharing the small bed. 

Ronan had woken because of a nightmare. Something with claws that ripped him apart until they ripped him awake. His hand reached for something instinctively, finding Declan’s hand. His older brother jerked awake, took one look at Ronan’s paralyzed expression, and frowned.

Ronan couldn’t speak. Instead he raced out of bed and down the hall, hiding from the eyes of his demons and his brother. Declan was well versed in Ronan’s nightmares by now, though, and had learned all of his hiding spots. When he found Ronan tucked in a back barn, out by the sheep, Declan took his blanket and wrapped it around Ronan’s shoulders.

“Come to bed, Ronan,” Declan whispered.

* * *

That blanket went through a lot. It was spit up on thousands of times, had been the center of tug-of-war fights between Matthew and Ronan enough times that the stitches began to pop, and had been used to dry many tears. 

Ronan once asked his older brother why he was so willing to give up his blanket when it was the very thing that kept him alive.  _ Didn’t he worry about it being destroyed? _

Declan had simply said, “It’s not  _ my _ blanket.”

It took Ronan many, many years to figure out that, when he thought his brother was being intentionally vague or dismissive, that he was always telling the truth. It’s just that Declan didn’t find the matter unclear and Ronan did. Which was the core of all of the Lynch brother’s problems.

  
None could recognize love when it was being poured out. They always expected it came with a price, despite that no brother would ever dare charge one another. 

* * *

The truth was, when Ronan reflected on his father, the tides shifted often. In his youth, Niall was beloved by all the brothers but by Ronan in particular. Because for as many nights that Declan helped Ronan through his nightmares, there were equal nights where Niall kept Ronan’s dreams peaceful.

Because Niall made a picturesque home most of the time. And although he was given Aurora because Niall wanted someone to love him without question, no would could deny he loved his wife with aching sweetness. Ronan grew up thinking love meant his mother’s laughter bouncing down the hall and his parents dancing at any moment’s notice. He thought love was his father whispering in Aurora’s ear,  _ How lucky are we to spend eternity together? _

Niall was also a storyteller and a good one. He wove words into silken stories and created adventures from nothing more than the trees and the sun. He teased his sons and taught them games and read them stories every night. 

Niall made it difficult to have bad dreams when everything was so magical. Ronan remembered one night, all three brothers piled onto one small bed, legs kicked over their father’s lap and shoulders in haphazard delight. Niall’s hands raked through Ronan’s curls first, then Matthew’s, as he told them a story about a man who could pull things from his dreams.

Declan was thought to be a man by then, despite being still quite young, and when the story finished Niall began to tease his eldest. 

“Soon you’ll find your own wife,” Niall commented, cuffing Declan softly under his chin. “But you’ll be the first to birth a girl, just to spite me,” Niall said, tapping his finger once on Declan’s nose before he returned to twist his fingers through Ronan’s dark curls. “Not you, though. You’ll give me a good grandson, won’t you, Ronan?”

“I will, too!” Matthew yelled, jumping on his father’s back. “And I’ll call him Niall after you!”

“I won’t have a girl,” Declan muttered. “I won’t have anything. There’s no point.”

“Girls are stupid,” Ronan agreed.

“That’s not what I meant-- I just-- Just forget it.” Declan climbed off the bed and wandered off, possibly to find Aurora or maybe to stew alone. He was doing a lot of stewing alone back then. 

In Ronan’s mind, that memory was special and perfect. A moment with his father and just the boys, where he was proud of them. It took years for Ronan to realize that his happy memories were viewed differently for Declan. They used to argue and argue about whether Niall was good to Declan because, in Ronan’s mind, these were the moments where it was obvious he loved his eldest son. But Declan never denied that. The problem was that, while Niall was happy to let his pride for Ronan bloom in empty spaces, he seemed intent to cut Declan short. To offer him praise but to take it away just as quick. 

* * *

When the tide flowed back hundreds of years later and Ronan realized that his father was full of imperfections, the culprit was Niall’s penchant for causing Ronan’s nightmares. 

Because Ronan dreamed of being ripped apart for a very specific reason.

Most nights, instead of a bed-time story, Niall would pull the three boys together and recite his rules. 

“You can never, ever tell anyone about our secrets. Never tell them about your token. It’s best to not even make friends, because friends will find out eventually. Do you know what the world would do to us if they found out? They’d take us as prisoners and lock us up for studying. They’d cut open your body - probably remove your eyes and drill a small hole - and examine at your brain. They’d want to know how this happened, how  _ we _ happened, because humans want more time and we got it. So do you understand?”

The three boys would nod, hands clenched tight at their father’s shirt. Then Ronan would fall asleep and dream of needles and fingers digging into his eyes and he’d gasp awake and grip for Declan.

Years and years and years later, when teaching Opal to stay away from the stove, Ronan lied and told her it was a monster that eats children if they come too close. A silly tale, meant to keep her out of danger. 

Maybe that’s all Niall meant to do. 

But there was a difference between the tales that Niall told and the lies Ronan taught. The stove was not a monster. It never would be. Once you knew how it worked, how to follow the rules, the stove couldn’t hurt you.

Humans, on the other hand, were always monsters, and they followed no rules.

* * *

When your family never ages, you spend a lot of time together. Years and years and years. 

And sometimes...it got a bit old. A bit boring.

Dad and his jokes. Mom and her cooking. Declan’s grump and Matthew’s bounce. Again, and again, and again...

Ronan didn’t mean to make it all sound bad, at the end of the day they were a family and a family that got along quite well. And say what you will, their special gift meant they had a bond stronger than most families.

But at a certain point, Ronan became very away that family wasn’t everything you needed. Niall’s rules of no friends meant that Ronan spent most of his time alone and, about twenty years into being twenty five, Ronan decided he wanted more out of his life and decided to move out. 

Now his father would never allow him to move further than a farm away, but even that felt like an adventure at first. Ronan established his own farm. Chose the animals he wanted to raise, the produce he wanted to cultivate. He made no friends - just as his father required - but set up enough acquaintanceships in town that he could manage an actual business. 

And at first it was enough. It seemed like being on his own and being his own man could fill the unease curdling in his stomach. But the years trickled on and it bit into his stomach, an ulcer that burned no matter what he did to sooth it. 

He knew he wanted something more. He just didn’t know  _ what _ that meant.

A relationship was out of the question. Delcan tried it a bit. Found girls in nearby towns and seduced them with the blue of his eyes and years of practiced flirtation. He’d take them behind barns and-- well, this was normally where Ronan threw a pillow at his face and stalked off. 

But Declan was fine to leave them behind the barn, lips kiss-swollen and hands still tracing the pattern of his back in mid-air. 

Ronan idealized his parents relationship too much to do that. He thought love meant  _ one. _ A singular person who fit like your second skin, a warmth that filled you up.

And that person didn’t seem to be in his small town, or even Ireland.

Also. 

  
There was that other problem.

  
  


* * *

Sometime when Ronan was still growing old, his father placed his hand on his shoulder and said, “Someday you’ll have sons of your own, and you’ll feel this joy for yourself.”

They were in town - a rare outing where Niall let the family exist among others - and the two of them sat around a bonfire. Nearby were his mother and Matthew, hands held tight as they spun in circles, laughing, as the band played an Irish jig. Declan was off who knows where, probably taking advantage of his father’s buzz to find a young girl to feel up. 

Ronan didn’t know what to say.

His eyes caught on a boy dancing near Matthew. Ronan didn’t know his name, but he’d been sneaking looks at him all evening. He had a patch of hair that peaked through the upper buttons of his shirt and Ronan wanted to curl his finger around it.

Niall pinched Ronan’s cheek, then patted it twice, and said, “You’ll be a great father. A son with your genes - with that forest - God almighty, I can’t wait to meet him.”

Ronan swallowed the lump in his throat and looked away from the boy.

* * *

Ronan was itchy. Near crazed. He was so bored at his farm, so bored of this life, that he was getting reckless ideas. The night before he had packed his most important items into a bag and made up his mind to leave town. His family. To go somewhere far away - somewhere so very different from Ireland - because the ulcer was growing bigger. 

Logic crept in overnight. In the morning he unpacked each of his possessions, put them safely back where they belonged. 

As he tended to his farm that day he tried to think more realistically. He was bored. And lonely. He wanted adventure, or, fuck, even just an  _ experience. _

He looked up at his token - the forest who had followed him his entire life, who was supposed to give him something he wanted more than anything in the world. Ronan closed his eyes and prayed, a simple wish.

_ God. Cabeswater. Whoever. Please. I need something. Anything. _

“Hi.”

Ronan jumped at the sudden appearance of a stranger. It was-- a boy. A lanky little thing in the oddest outfit he’d ever seen. 

The boy was talking so fast. He said, “My name is Adam and I think I’m lost. Could I borrow your phone?”

Ronan stared at the boy, then looked back at his forest.

_ Not what I meant, Cabeswater, _ he thought bitterly. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Forty years later, Ronan visited home to find his mother collapsed on the floor, eyes open, staring blankly at the ceiling. She had no wounds, no blood.

He found his father shortly after, though the picture was entirely different. There was blood - everywhere.

His eyes were missing.

It wasn’t the adventure Ronan wanted either.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote a good 85% of this almost immediately after I wrote time travel shenanigans, and then I spent the past year and a half wondering if I should actually turn this into an original novel and held off posting. But. I don't think that will ever happen, for many reasons. And then someone posted a comment recently asking if I was still planning to write this and I was like, "Why the fuck not? I need something to do this summer."
> 
> I have no idea how many chapters/how long this will go, but I figure, you all...already know what happens...so hopefully it's not agonizing if I post off and on. There will be some new things you'll learn, but ultimately it's just a different look at things.


End file.
